Monthly Archives: September 2015

Were closing out Pokemon Week so it’s only fitting to do this top five!

#5 Pokemon Never Gets Old- It’s true. Even after so many years, I still want to go buy a Gameboy Color and play Gold/Silver and Red/Blue.The games are priceless just for sheer memory value(Which I’ll be getting into in a later point). That’s just the game portion of the Pokemon world. Season one is on Netflix and every kid from the 90’s had the pleasure of refalling in love with the beloved show we all grew up on. It’s pretty sweet.

#4- The World Of Pokemon Is Beautiful and Wonderful!- You gotta understand, I love breaking down worlds. I do it every time in Manga Monday and Anime Reviews. The Pokemon world is great. Simple montages of pokemons in their habitats puts a big smile on my face. Coming out of high school, I wanted to become an ecologist. I am sure that explains this part of my love for Pokemon. Heck, day dreaming about pokemons in their habitats might be why I wanted to become an ecologist in the first place. Put shortly, it is real precious to watch pokemons in their daily lives.

#3 The Games Keep Getting Better- Okay, so there is a group of people known as Gen Oners or First Gen Elitist or whatever you want to call them. I’m not saying anything is wrong with Gen one, it was great and some of my best memories of the franchise happened there. BUT… Boy, am I glad it kept going. Johto is my favorite region and I think X&Y have done wonders with the game. It is crazy to reflect on how far it has come, seriously. If you quit playing Pokemon after Red and Blue, you should be upset with yourself. I dare you to play through the 6 gens. You will see they just continually get better. Of course, some Pokemon’s have gotten quite weird, dumb, and just plain silly, but the franchise as a whole is going strong and making awesome updates. I didnt think a pokemon game would ever touch Silver, than Platinum came out. I didnt think a pokemon game would ever touch Platinum. Than X&Y came out. Somehow, they just keep getting better.

#2 The Bond With The Pokemon- Maybe this is number 1 for a lot of people, and rightfully so. Spending hundreds of hours with your pokemon’s, raising their levels, traveling the world, you can’t help but love your pokemon by the time the journey is all over. One thing I thought the show captured so well was the bond between trainer and pokemon(Except with Charizard of course). Watching Pikachu and all the other pokemon’s fight hard for their trainer and how they wanted to train hard and grow stronger was so cool to watch. It definitely was well expressed and I love that about the show.

#1 History- Yeah, there is a lot of it with this franchise. I remember years ago picking out my first Squirtle and traveling Kanto with him by my side, or collecting all the vhs’s and doing the poke rap!, or feeling bad for Ash because he is really bad at pokemon and most of the gym leaders felt bad for him so they just gave him badges, or when Brock Misty and Ash say their goodbyes and your younger self just cant handle the thought of no more new Pokemon. Yeah, I, like almost every pokemon fan, have cherished memories of the card game, anime, manga, and the video games!

This is only scratching the surface, I didnt even mention the friends you make through pokemon, the new interactions theyve added, crushing your rival, playing competitively, capturing legends, filling the pokedex, finding shinies, building a team. The list is never ending.

So why do you play Pokemon? What got you into it? Why’d you stick around for however long? What’s your fondest/earliest memory with the franchise? Leave it in the comment!

This post is gonna be a little short and not as in depth as previous top fives this week. This week has been crazy..

#5- Eevee- Yeap. Bringing Eevee back. So we have a couple of ideas for this guy. First, every eevolution could be bred to form a new pokemon.(Think Phione and Manaphy). Or you can evolve Eevee into your preferred choice. Than breed it. The hatched eevee would than have the type of that eevolution. This could be pretty sweet for NFE or LC. My girlfriend wants Eevee to have a baby form called Eve.

#4 Audino- I feel like Audino is suppose to be like Clefairy and Chansey(Based off design). I think she comes up short until she mega evolves, of course. I really hope they give her the evolution line like Chansey and Clefairy gained over the years.

#3 Kangaskhan- I always wanted her to have a baby form showing off the joey. Well Game Freak gave us the Mega form of Kanga and it showed the joey out of the patch. So maybe this idea is no longer valid, but itd still be cool for us to see the little joey going on it’s own adventures

#2 Miltank- I think it might be a no brainer to give her a baby form and call it Caltank(Play on calves not cows). She would be a nice, speedy wall that could be problematic in NFE or LC.

#1 Lapras- I love Lapras and a baby form would be so precious. Competitively, She would have access to Water Absorb and Toxic, but I really like the idea just based on design as it would be adorable to watch in the show.

This is not the best explanation of each pokemon. I am running off of about 10 hours of sleep total over the last three days as I am potty training puppies who wake me up every 1-2 hours and when I am not trying to sleep me and my girlfriend have been visiting her dad every four hours in I.C.U. the last two day. So I have nowhere near enough time to sit down and write an explanation for each, but it is Pokemon Week so were doing a post everyday! Hopefully I can get some sleep tonight and we’ll end this week off on a high note tomorrow!

Coming at you guys late today for personal reasons. But lets dive on in. This is a fun one.

Ever saw a pokemon and thought “Man. That pokemon is dumb, weak, or maybe even has potential?” Yeah. Me too. Here’s a list of pokemon that could use a touch up, or have potential if they could just get the evolve form they need or deserve.

*DISCLAIMER*- I made up some abilities and moves I think could go along with the pokemon.

#5- Eevee- I know what youre thinking, eevee already has like 7 evolutions, do we really need more? Yes! I say at least 2 more. Whenever they do the newest installment, I want a poison Eevee and a steel Eevee to be some of the highlights of the game. I think they can pull this off well too. In 4th gen and 1st gen, the baddies loved poison types from skunks to bats. Poison Eevee could be the head boss’s pokemon. A little ways into the game, you could be given an Eevee with a held item that would evolve it into a steel form(No, not metal. Okay, maybe.). My girlfriend wants them to do dragon and flying next.

#4- Corsola/Qwilfish- Okay, so I like Corsola, but its stats make it forgettable. I am not sure what the design would look like, but I am thinking stat wise we make it rival Cloyster. It might be a stretch, but I feel it should turn into a water fairy when it evolves. Fairies are weak to fire, but with a water type, that handles that. Now on to Qwilfish. Two of my favorite types combined into one pokemon. Lets face it very few people are excited to have tentacool/tentacruel, or Skelp. Qwilfish’s evolution would be an awesome sweeper

#3-Stunfisk!
Stunfisk is kinda in that group of Feebas and Magikarp, useless fishies. Albeit, Stunfisk would be the best standalone. He does lack one thing that makes Feebas and magikarp superior- They EVOLVE, he DOES NOT. Lets fix that.

#2- Maractus-
So, I have no memory of this pokemon ever existing. Stat-wise she has great Sp ATK. Design-wise I guess she is suppose to fit in with the other 3 cactus pokemon. I have an idea for what to do with her moving forward. We give her a dark type an introduce a new “weather” condition, the ability to make it night time during battle, increasing dark moves and lowering fairy moves(maybe fire moves as well since they get boosted by sunny day?).

Lets take a look at what the evolve form would look like:
Type: Grass Dark
Abilities: Silent (Raise speed and attack during the night) Stealth (Raise Speed and SP ATK during the night)
Stats:
HP 85, ATK 115, DEF 75, SP ATK 125, SP DEF 75, SPD 105= 580 Base Total
Its signature move would be Nightfall(Makes it night, inside and outside of battle). Though this move is better suited on say Umbreon, this could be a way to showcase the move. I also thought about making it an ability like drizzle.

HONORABLE MENTIONS!

Combee gets a split evolution into Vespiking! Luvdisc its stats are miserable for a standalone poke. I think Whisicott and Lilligant could use third forms. They feel incomplete compared to Leavanny even though they arent that far behind stat-wise. Basculin would probably have an awesome evolve form. I feel like they just kinda quit on him.

#1- Dunsparce-
Dunsparce is maybe my favorite pokemon who is kinda bad. I have dreamed of over a decade to make this thing evolve. I want to make it a snake/dragon pokemon, so I am conflicted on typing. I am debating either Dragon/Poison, Dragon/Dark. If we drop the dragon idea and just make a bigger snake than I am debating Poison/Dark, Poison/Ground, Poison/Rock. But I am going with Dragon/Poison making it only the second pokemon with this typing(Dragalge).

#5 Light- Okay, years ago I wanted this type to be added to combat dark(now that fairy has been added, this type is about 90% useless). But I still think these pokemon would very beautiful to look at if nothing else.

#4- Sound- Shout out too tpcsufian for the idea. Sound based moves and ability already exist, so why not give them their own type? Most of these pokemon are normal, so how about instead of having a boring type we give them a new type? Think Jigglypuff, Whismur, Chatot, etc

#3- Cyber- Yet again, Shout out too tpcsufian for help with this one. Cyber is anything dealing with online/virtual realty. I think this is a good type moving forward with how cyber based our word is getting. Pokemon’s that come to mind: Porygon, Genesect, Magneminte .

#1 Celestial- Yes! The number 1 pokemon type they should add is celestial. Pokemons from Space! Deoxys, Jirachi, Clefairy, all come to mind. Plus the designs are endless. I think these pokemon would just be all around great.

There are tons of abilities that already exist in the pokemon universe(191 if not mistaken!), but if you want to keep things fresh for 20 years, you gotta keep making them. With this in mind, I am going throw down five ideas for future abilities!

#5- Attitude- Some very common moves are swords dance, dragon’s dance, calm mind, etc. Well if your pokemon had Attitude, then if a pokemon tried to set up in such a way, it would trigger your pokemon’s ability-Attitude. Once Attitude is triggered, you gain double what they gain. You could use it in doubles and have one pokemon that sets up. In return, this could trigger your other pokemon’s Attitude ability! I got this idea kinda based off of the preexisting ability, simple. So I get it if it feels like this ability already exist, but I thought it would be a cool way of expressing a characteristic of pokemons.

Who would have this?: I haven’t really watched much of the show since the Hoenn days, but think of any pokemon that has attitude that stands out far and above the others. I mostly mean this in a sassy connotation. Also, I was thinking it might could be a hidden ability on super weak pokemons as a way of evening things up.

#4 Tough Armor- Armor abilities exist in pokemon, but here is one I think needs to be added- Tough Armor. It simply says “Fighting and Ground moves do 50% less damage). clearly have one type of pokemon in mind for this. Steel pokemon’s tend to get wrecked by these two types. Also, I feel like when Bronzong was popular in the days of Diamond and Pearl, you had to guess the metagame based off whether to give him Heatproof or Levitate. I feel like this ability brings that guessing back. If you’re running a steel type, do you go with Heatproof, Tough Armor, or even Levitate. Sure, this covers steel’s weakness but you have to guess what types are gonna show up.

Who would have this?: Functionality-wise, I had Steel pokemon in mind. I assume you could give this to any pokemon who have a weakness to either one or both though.

#3 Caliginous/Dusk- This ability would be much like sand stream. When you summon a pokemon with this ability, it makes it nighttime. Subsequently, Dark moves get a slight boost as well as a slight boost in speed, whereas, Fairy moves get hindered slightly and maybe even fire pokemon since they like it when it’s sunny. You could also use this move to make it nighttime outside of battle to help catch pokemons that only come out at night.

Who would have it?: Umbreon jumps to mind immediately, but it could be thrown on pokes such as Houndoom and Mandibuzz.

#2 Luster- This ability goes out to everyone who loves their shiny pokemon. Basically if you breed your pokemon with another pokemon who has Luster, it increases the chances of them producing a shiny egg. In battle it could be used to increase the chance of encountering a shiny pokemon, or interact with shiny pokemon’s such as boosts moves if the user is shiny. Just a thought.

Who would have this?: I know everyone is screaming ditto right now. And it would be a welcomed upgrade in my opinion. It’s two abilities are imposter(Which is basically its move transform in ability form) and limber(I guess useful on your sweeping Ditto).

#1 Rancorous- Look, Poison Point and Poison Touch are fine, but they are dependent on the opponent attacking. I say, take the action into your own hands! With Rancorous all poison moves would get a slight boost in power. Also if your pokemon is running this ability, all damage inducing moves would have a 10% chance to poison an opponent(Even if they aren’t poison moves to begin with). I also had the idea that rancorous would just give all moves an addition poison typing, but I wasn’t sure how that would work with damage calculation(But I guess it would work the same as double typed pokemon).

So who would have this?: Crowbat, Arbok, Weezing and Muk, all come to mind. Yet again though, you really could throw this ability on any poison pokemon.

Come up with any abilities of your own? Post them in the comment section!

Pokemon has 20 years of games, animes, manga, cards, and way more under its belt. This series as touched me and influenced my life possibly the most out of any game. It is one of the reasons I started this blog. Pokemon Go and now Pokemon Z have people buzzing. I think it’s only fair we do a week of Pokemon week! I will be doing a Top Five dedicated to pokemon this Monday-Friday. I am so pumped to do this. Some will be cliche topics and some will be pretty cool.

This starts tomorrow! So check back then and lets kick this off right.

Okay, so the trend is becoming that #TOPFIVE@FIVE is getting done later than 5pm EST. That is because of the other trend which is discovering something on a Friday that I want to talk about. A few weeks ago, I learned of Pokken on a Friday and had to totally change the top five I was working on. Well, the same thing happened today. Hours ago, I stumbled up Pokemon Go. Obviously, we got to talk about this!

First Impression: Easy. WHY WASNT THIS DONE SOONER! My 7 year old self would NEVER put this down. Heck, my now 20 year old self probably wont put this down!

Reflection: Ehh, I can see some problems arising. So naturally, I am here to do a list of stuff I hope they get right and some questions I have about moving forward!

Its a Mobile App. What does this mean for the story? Is there one? Is this just a simplified version of the games we know and love? The concept of catching, trading, and battling seems like a lot of fun and could hold us over til the next installment, so is it wrong to hope for more features? Are gym battles, day cares, and interactive play sessions too much to ask for? Maybe. It’s Free To Play, so I really wont complain if its just surface level.

Legendary Pokemons. How do we handle this? Are they event based? Location Based? Unlock a boss fight by playing so long, catching so many, or visiting so many regions? It seems Mewtwo has been confirmed, so will there be more?

Speaking of Confirmed Pokemon. How many Pokemons will be in here? The latest generation is 6, which puts us at I believe up to 721 pokemons! The latest installment was a remake of Gen 3. However, upon a second watch of the trailer, I only saw first Gen Pokemon. It’s Free To Play, so yet again, if we only see Gen 1 its not the end of the world. An update could fix this later if that is the case.

Battery Life. I still use a caveman phone, so I do not speak SmartPhones(I just use my girlfriend’s if I want to play a game). Will this game destroy your battery? I heard you have to have GPS among other things turned on to really interact with it. If that is the case, am I confined to wherever there’s an outlet for a charger? Yet again, I am concerned about this, but I don’t speak that language so someone can correct me or confirm me.

Location. Location. Location. Maybe my biggest concern is will they make Pokemon location specific. This idea is great for the 3DS games and makes exploring worth it in the games. Real life, however, not so much. I, personally, can not wake up and say “Oh, I want Jirachi, lets go to Tokyo”. I, and I am sure everyone else, hope we can obtain all Pokemons just by doing our daily lives. I am down with time affecting encounter rates. I am okay with weather affecting encounter rates. I am even okay with spreading them out. I think they should make it where nearly every pokemon is within a range of the user. I do not know how realistic or easy a task like this will be to handle correctly, but I am rooting for them to pull it off. Keep in mind, this is a casual down time app. The majority are not going to want to have to get really dedicated to searching all over the globe for a game they are playing to kill time between class.

Alright, alright. Since this is 3 hours late. I will do two more!

3DS Compatibility. Is there any? Oh, come on. This would be awesome. Being able to move my pokemon’s over to my 3ds game would be great. This would also make it worth playing and could help get the On-The-Fence players to buy in. Also, it could solve location issues. If you do not live in the North Pole, but you want to play with your Delibrd, you could just be allowed to trade him over from X to your phone. Sounds like a solid idea to me.

How long will they support it? I am not app savy, but I assume its running on a server. So my question is how long will they support the server? Especially if it doesnt catch fire with the general public. Basically, will I have time to catch them all?

Recap Time! I would love access to all pokemons and have them relatively easy to find. Capture the legendary experience. Do not throw legends at us, but do not make it impossible to get them. It would be so cool to interact with our pokemon, but it is free to play so I’ll be content with just finding pokemons. Give us the ability to move pokemon freely between our phones and 3DS.

So, I’ve been up since 5 in the morning today, but that is okay. I knocked out the first part of becoming a substitute teacher today. The 4 hour class to get certified. In this post I will be talking about what we discussed and other matters I took away from it.

Let’s dive on in.

For starters, if you have taken an education class, or you were previously a teacher, this is going to be some of the most boring hours of your life. We talked about code of ethics, managing your classroom, and how to handle the new environment. This is stuff I already learned about during my first education class last semester. It was a nice refresher and I did learn some new tricks, but for the most part it really was like they just took a whole semester class and cramped it into 4 long hours.

So what was the presentation like?

The first 3 hours was spent by all 40 of us telling our life story of how we ended up here. It’s not as dreamy as it sounds. Out of 40, I dare say only about 6 or 7 of us were aspiring teachers. The majority? Stay-at-home/retired moms who wanted to go be around their kids at the school. I am not a parent, so maybe I am biased, but I am definitely torn on this. On one hand, as an aspiring teacher, I feel like we should be put on priority(Of course there is nowhere on the applications I filled out that ask what my goals are). We want experience, we would like to have a paying job that we can actually use on a resume. On the other hand, I think it is very important for parent involvement! So substitute teaching is actually a pretty nifty way to do that.

Here’s a fun little game called “Stuff Future Substitute Teachers Say”
“I want to get my feet wet.”
“I am trying to get my foot in the door”
“I have four kids”
“I am here for the income”
“I was a [..] I got tired of it. Now I am here”
“I retired… I’m back”

I show you these quote to segue into our next topic. Who goes to these things?

Most common? Stay-at-home moms made up a majority of the people. Second Most? I use to do […]. I got tired of it. I want to try this. Third? Aspiring Teachers/Other college students. Fourth? Retired Teacher/Administration.

We had four hair stylist who wanted something new. We had a retired cop who wanted to be an Ag teacher. We had a guy from Denmark who worked up north and then came down to coach soccer. We had a kid who had his bachelors in history and was wanting to be a teacher despite not having a background in education. There was only one other person aside from me and my girlfriend who were actually studying education in college.

Here’s a rundown of useful tips:
Meet your neighbors! Talk to the teachers around your classroom. They can help you if you need it. It’s also just a good way to network yourself.
Make business cards! All teachers have mailboxes inside the school. Show up early and put your card in their boxes.
Get their early! For reasons 1&2 and more I am sure. Just get their early and get to know the classroom.

When it was over, we were all given our certificate. No general test, no state level test. Nothing to sweat there. Along with the certificate, you need to get an application for the school system you want to substitute in. You need to already have references and then you need to make copies of that certificate. Some schools will want a copy. Turn the application into a a principle in the system. They will check your references and select rather or not to add you. If you survive this process, your name gets sent to a person in charge of subs for the county. At this step, you will receive a phone call asking you to come fill out some paper work and do a background check. Once it comes back, Congratulations! You are in the system.

I have turned in my application. I am just waiting on a phone call now. Fingers crossed!

Not everywhere is the same.

The county I went to take the class was just a neighboring county maybe 20 minutes away. There you have to go in front of the board for an interview. In my county, that part does not exist. However, I am pretty sure you are required to get certified, get approved one way or another, and than have background checks. I could be wrong though.

Interested? How do you get stated?
In the U.S.A., there is an organization called RESA(Regional Education Service Education). These people are your best friends. Check to see when they are holding one of these substitute teaching classes. Sign up and pay whatever fee there is. That should be all there is to it. Just attend class on your selected day and figure out your county’s protocol.

So! Does your county or state or county do things differently? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear about it. Anything specific interest you and you want to hear more? Well leave a comment for that too.

Noragami was made by Adachitoka and published through Kodansha Comics. It debuted in 2010 and did not come stateside until 2014.

Spoilers: Minor

Plot: Noragami tells the story of Yato, the shrine-less god, on the hunt to gain fame, and Iki’s struggle as a half human, half ayakashi. Something I noticed was that each of the three chapters seemed to have a new main character. Chapter 1 centers around Mutsumi. Chapter 2 centers around Yato. and Chapter 3 centers around Iki. The whole premise of the manga is that Yato is on the bottom of the food chain as far as gods go. He also has no people skills(Which could say a lot about why he has no followers). His Shinki, or divine weapon of the gods, leaves him due to his lack of compassion. The rest of Vol 1 is about his hunt for a new shinki. Iki wants Yato to fix her problem(See characters for more details). They end up fighting an ayakashi, creatures living on the middle shore. The shores are basically this story’s version of the human realm and the afterlife. Naturally, the middle shore is out of sight of humans and the creatures are not quite as strong as gods and such. In chapter 3, we meet Yuki, so I have reason to believe he will be the subject of chapter 4 in the next volume.

Characters: For now, I will only talk about the two main characters. Yato and Iki
Yato- People Skills? Nope. Compassion? Nope. Southern Charm? Nope. Shinki? Maybe. He does not have that much going for him. Even as a god he mentions an ayakashi would not even acknowledge him as a superior without his shinki. He is not the most flawed character ever, but he definitely has a ton of room to grow. That does make it interesting to see what he will end up like.

Iki- She does make the manga more interesting. She was hit by a bus. No no, this does not take an awesome Yu Yu Hakusho turn. Instead, she comes back alive without having to save her body. She is now a form of ayakashi. Randomly, she will pass out and go into a spirit form. Her spirit form has a tail. No no, this does not take an even more awesomer Dragon Ball turn. Instead, if her tail is cut, she will no longer be able to return to her human form. Essentially, this makes her a liability in combat.

Cannot wait to see these two grow.

World: Okay. So, if you are into spirits, afterlife, gods and demons, you’ll probably like this world. I am really not sure if other gods will come in or what(I do not look up spoilers or any information. Most of my reads are blind reads of books that catch my eye). But there is definitely one god floating around, Yato. Ayakashis are here too. They do not do too much from what I’ve gathered. In chapter 1, the negative stress of all the students creates a huge ayakashi that encourages the kids to bully Mutsumi. In chapter 3, one challenges Yato and they fight. The themes do incorporate supernatural mythology. I am into it.

Recap: A good story that does not try to confide itself to one genre like action or romance, but blends a lot of genres into a supernatural world.

Action: Used sparingly.Romance: No romance or love plot lines jumped out to me so far.Plot: Very solid. Is a good telling of gods, demons, and other supernatural matters.Characters: Yato does not stick out to me as much as other main characters, but he is still enjoyable to say the leastThe World: Standard human world with supernatural elements thrown in.Humor: Nowhere near the funniest of mangas I’ve ever read. With that said, it still has hilarious parts thrown in. So yeah, it is good for a few laughs, for sure.

Verdict: You can recommend this book to a lot of people. There is action, but it doesnt lean on it, there is comedy and most of it is clean if I remember right. It is a solid read.

Score: 7.5 out 10. Even with all the good things I’ve said. This is volume 1 and you can tell this is just the beginning. It is a positive read with a lot of strong points, and it sets up the world right. It explains to the audience what the demons are like, what the gods are like, so on and so forth. I expect volume 2 to be even better.